Closer
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: We took on the guise of liars and had let it bleed into our very beings.


I can feel you haunting me, crawling under my skin like a parasite. The harder I try to deny it, the worse it seems to get. I have been denying it for so long that sometimes I think I'll even start to believe it myself. I can pretend that I don't really want you, but there is always something inside of me that rears its ugly head to remind me that all that is a lie.

Once upon a time we were happy. All those times we hid in the shadows, afraid to be caught, but yet begging to be. That was the thrill to it, the uncertainty. At any moment we could be found out for the devious little liars we were. It was a whirlwind of lies and deceit, for hatred and love and lust. We thrived on subtle glances and stolen kisses in dark corners, both begging that our friends wouldn't find us. We both knew how disgusted they would be if they knew we were together.

When I fell in love with you I fell in love with the beauty that you hid deep down inside. There was such a fragile weakness to you, a loneliness I couldn't help but cling to. Perhaps you could call it maternal instinct: the desire to protect those that seemed to need protecting. But there was this fragileness hidden beneath a gruff exterior. Inside you were spun glass, outside concrete.

I took comfort in the fragileness inside of you. It was like you hid that from everyone in the world save me. You let me see what wheels turned beneath the surface, what light dwelled in a shell of darkness, hidden from the very people you claimed to trust with all of yourself. It was that fear of being found out for who you actually were that led you to me, hoping for love and acceptance where there hadn't been any before.

For three years we hid our relationship. I played the loving girlfriend to someone I didn't love, snuck away to meet with you so I could feel complete for a little while. You would find a reason to take off from your responsibilities to spend even a little while with me. Even when we could only meet for a few hours at a time, it was enough for us both to have that time together, to be able to feel each other's warmth and feel a completeness we had yet to experience in others.

We had both been foolish enough to believe we could keep up this farce for the rest of our lives- to play the parts we had been designed to play and only reveal our true selves when we were in each other's company. But time withers away all masks, breaks them down and leaves them to gather cobwebs and dust. Our masquerade had to end. No choices, no denials.

I'll never forget the look in your eyes when we said goodbye. At first you looked hurt and then you let your anger spiral in like a storm, clouding over your goodness, destroying all I had come to love. Didn't you know it hurt me to leave you as much as it hurt you? Didn't you see this coming for a long time already? It was like you were afraid to admit the truth, even to yourself. We had lived in this delusion for so long it was like you clung to it with all you were. We took on the guise of liars and had let it bleed into our very beings. Now that the time for lying had come to an end, you couldn't bring yourself to detox from it.

Who I had fallen in love with had faded away into nothingness. You stripped him away and turned him into the monster he always pretended to be. Looking at you after that, when we'd pass each other on the street, it was like looking at a stranger. The skin was that of the man I loved, the inside was that of a stranger. It was heartache and disappointment. Had you planned that? To make me break down so completely by becoming the very person you knew I would hate the most?

"You can't live without me," you had said. Your words burned my ears, left me gasping for breath. "You need me. You just don't know it yet."

"I don't need anyone," I had told you. "I wanted you. Oh did I want you. I did with all of my heart. But you always knew this would end."

"I knew no such thing. This wasn't supposed to fall apart."

"You were disillusioning yourself if you really thought that."

Perhaps I wanted to be cruel to you, just to get you away from me. I thought hurting you now would do more good than hurting you later. I had to make you let go of me. This farce had to fade away into nothingness. There could be no speaking about it, no more secret meetings and hushed words. There is a time for everything, and our time had ended. It was time to pack it away into our memories, cherish it but let it die.

But now I know there is no stopping this darkness inside of you. I feel it with every glance you send me on the street, hear it every time I am wandering somewhere and I hear your voice. That sound used to bring me light, now it brings me pain. This hell is consuming me, devouring my very soul.

Sometimes I want to tell you you're frightening me. On those nights when I awake to find you hovering in the corner of my room. I merely can't bring myself to speak. All I can do is stare and wonder what happened to the man I loved. And what demon has taken his place.

"I'd kill to be closer to you again," you said.

"And I'd kill to start over." I told you.

Once we bathed in love, breathed in desire, lived in lust.

Now we live in heartache.


End file.
